About a month ago my daughter asked me to come over with the tripod and the digital SLR and do my best to imitate a real photographer. She had been invited by an art & design site called Little Paper Planes to submit a spread for their ongoing feature called Curated Walls.
Mabel Watson Payne and her Daddy took themselves off to the playground. It felt quite surreal to me – being left behind on a trip to the playground – but my daughter had other ideas in mind for my time and energy as she led me around the apartment pointing out the artwork she wanted to feature and suggesting angles and groupings.
This project made me change my mind about the best next piece of camera equipment to covet. I'd assumed what I wanted most was a zoom lens of roughly the same medium-to-high quality as the prime lens I have been working with for the past six months. Now I am thinking it might be more useful to get a good wide-angle lens first. The complete, wall-size views I tried to take for this project turned out to be rather tragic due to technical limitations (and I omit them here).
Needless to say my easy favorite of all these photos is the last, featuring a just-framed drawing of exceptional loveliness by my granddaughter (hanging above her mother's small, efficient desk-at-home).
Art credits –
1. Jessica Dacher (glowing squares)
2. Street artist (miniature chair)
3. Vintage gift (whale needlepoint)
4. Tjasa Owen (tiny square seascape)
5. David Maisel (photo) Jenny Vorwaller (painting)
6. Etsy print in Mabel's room (polar bears)
7. Jen Altman, Anna Beard, Kari Harer (photos)
8. Robbi Behr (circular sculpture)
9. Mabel Watson Payne (felt pens, crayons)